Eye of Darkness

Dark Eyes #4.4

Released: 2 March 2015

Listened: 11/26/21

This one had to end with a bang, as it was the conclusion of the whole Dark Eyes series, as well as this boxed set. Which meant bringing back Molly O’Sullivan in the previous story, but not played by Ruth Bradley. Having gotten rid of most of the other players, this one is just the Doctor and friends versus the Daleks, with the prototype Eminence as the prize, all fought on the Eye of Orion, for no real good reason. There’s a lot of stuff blowing up, Dalek blasting, betrayals, and a Dalek rebellion for good measure. However, it does suffer from trying to make the last episode big and meaningful, which often gets confused with “noisy.” And trying to tie the origin of the Eminence into the whole thing stretches credibility just a bit. And of course there’s a noble sacrifice, because there has to be. There’s a bit of philosophy going on that asks the question of how many lives can be sacrificed to save billions more. We know where the Doctor stands on that, especially this Doctor, but not everybody agrees. Which would be interesting to explore, but there’s too much stuff blowing up. At least the Doctor isn’t left in such a dark place this time around, and he has a friend for company. So that’s it for Molly O’Sullivan, who really wasn’t around all that long, and hasn’t appeared again since. She had presence, for sure, but was too often played as a plot device. The Dark Eyes epic as a whole wasn’t bad, but suffered a bit from shifting focus and writers.